Climate's conflict zone

摘要

It has been repeatedly claimed that refugees fleeing Syria are victims of climate change as well as victims of a vicious civil, and now international, conflagration. Scientific American declared that global warming "hastened" the war, and US president Barack Obama said "drought and crop failures and high food prices helped fuel the early unrest". The latest intervention comes from UK royal Prince Charles, who echoed those views in a TV interview broadcast last week. But critics say the link between climate and conflict is not sound, and some social scientists warn that implicating global warming in this way may take the heat off unsavoury regimes, such as that of Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad.